Game review: Rocksmith

Rocksmith

Many years ago Ray Connolly, the Beatles biographer, wrote a famous line “show me a boy who never wanted to be a rock star and i`ll show you a liar”.

Well folks it’s time to stop strutting around in front of the mirror in your underpants with a tennis racket (or is that just me) because Rocksmith is here, the latest guitar based game from Ubisoft.

I know we have had the likes of guitar hero satisfying our wannabe rock star needs, but it just felt like a big guitar controller, which it was in essence, so now with the unique set up with this game you can actually use a real guitar.

With the Hercules adapter you can connect an electric guitar to your PC or console and annoy the neighbours to your heart’s content.

There is an Epihone Les Paul Junior guitar available with the game at an extra cost, which will do the trick or just get your hands on a second hand guitar.

Perhaps finally use the one you have had hanging on the wall as an ornament for the past few years.

Rocksmith is more of a teaching aid than a game, yet it is incredible fun.

You start off with the basics showing you how to tune, hold and strum your instrument.

The actual game play is similar to guitar hero with the rolling display showing you which string to pluck and when.

With twelve different techniques to learn ranging from sustain to bends there is plenty to keep any budding guitar God busy.

Of course, it’s not all about six strings, there is the bass guitar part as well, so if you can`t get on with six move down to four.

The riff repeater is another nice little touch. This breaks the song up into sections, allowing you to master each one, and it slows and speeds up to match your ability until you get the hang of it.

Guitarcade is a series of mini games which are unlocked as you progress, and are basically designed around playing certain notes or bending a string to complete.

These are great for improving technique like the Scale runner which focuses on teaching scale patterns.

Amp mode turns your console into an amplifier with a variety of effect pedals and custom tones available as you progress this is a great addition allowing the player to customise tones and save them for use within the game.

The track list is impressive, with some classic numbers like satisfaction by the Rolling stones right up to undercover of Darkness by The Strokes and plenty of obscure tracks by bands I have never heard of.

It would have been nice to have some real rocking classics like Highway to Hell or Smoke on the Water, but I am sure they will make an appearance once the DLC is released.

Gameplay is pretty straight forward I found, yet being a long time guitar player I found it somewhat basic to begin with.

Yet this is great for an absolute beginner as you can be playing along in no time more experienced guitarists will find it a bit slow and dull to begin with.

As you get more into it I found lots of new stuff to be learnt.

Your guitar is tuned at the beginning of each track and the tone for each track is automatically set all you have to do is play along and it does get very busy after a while, and it became quite a challenge to get a perfect score.

Summary

If you liked Guitar Hero yet always felt there was something lacking, or you just want to learn how to play guitar then this is a brilliant way to fulfil that ambition, This game rekindled my love affair with the electric guitar and with plenty of DLC on the horizon this is a great new learning tool and loads of fun to boot.

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

Mid Sussex Times provides news, events and sport features from the Haywards Heath area. For the best up to date information relating to Haywards Heath and the surrounding areas visit us at Mid Sussex Times regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website Mid Sussex Times requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.